this week at the fpl

Big thanks to all who made the 7th birthday of the Front Porch Library such a success! The party was several Sundays in the making when you think about the saucification of our community garden vegetables, cookie baking, and gluing paper crickets on our official invitations–six on the front of each, one inside for the seventh year. “Hop on over to the celebration!”

Our party began with the behind-the-scenes prep at first light and went on until we were put out of our misery by the arrival of our first guests. We had plenty of kid help from Klark, Olivia, Keith, Nalani, Elleina and Connor. They alternately helped decorate and tote plates and silverware and strayed into the building supplies, compelled to create something on the rug that had to be walked around.

The weather being iffy, Ern cleared out the family carport next door and we set up our motley array of tables made beautiful with an assortment of red and white tablecloths (Miss Jennifer insisted that for spaghetti we needed Italian restaurant style tablecloths).

We assembled the ice cream sandwiches (homemade cookies, vanilla ice cream), heated the sauces. Maya cooked the noodles. We ran around like crazy people, beautifying with bouquets of hydrangeas on the tables and a snappy parade of books on the cross brace in the carport.

Neighbors came and came. I think we counted 49, including Greg Mannheimer, a neighbor long gone from Seminole Manor, but back for the festivities.

We did the usual read-alouds. “When Dinosaurs Came With Everything” was the biggest hit. “You want a box of donuts? A free dinosaur comes with it.” Everyone got the name of a book character or famous person slapped on their back and by asking questions they had to determine who they were.

We had volunteers on the street shooting hoops with the kids, volunteers overseeing the book giveaway table, volunteers lighting cake candles, running melting ice cream sandwiches back to the freezer, carrying food to some neighbors too busy with a medical crisis to come by. Too many volunteers to name, but I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.

We did everything with china plates, cloth napkins, the usual library mugs for drinks. No plastic or paper died for the cause, and that meant that the cleanup without a dishwasher was pretty big. Thanks John R. Woodwardand Vikki and Lillian McGee. The cost of our principles is sometimes a lot of hard work.